Discovered by NASA's Hubble Telescope, this impressive structure is known as the Bubble Nebula. Located 7,100 light years from Earth, this nebula is approximately 7 light years across. The star that forms this gigantic structure is 45 times more massive than our Sun.

The gases produced by the star become extremely hot and are blown out into space in the form of a stellar wind that reaches 6.4 million kilometres (four million miles) in duration. The heated gases glow with different temperatures depending on their temperature: blue is the radiation emitted by oxygen, green by heat, and red by nitrogen.

The Bubble Cloud originated about four million years ago, and the extent is such that the star is expected to terminate in a massive current supernova explosion in the next 10 to 20 million years.

Image description:

A light blue-coloured bubble with a small pink star in the upper left floats in space. Dense columns of cold hydrogen gas covered in dust can be seen in the upper left of the image, while more ‘fingers’ can be seen behind the translucent bubble, almost facing each other. Gas and sparsely scattered stars fill the background against the darkness of space.

 

Credit:

NASA, European Space Agency and Hubble Legacy Team (STScI/AURA)

For me, who loves bubbles, a giant bubble is very impressive! What do you think?